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2.16.2013

Moving along

I’m coming to you tonight from a laundromat because, well, our dryer conked out a couple weeks ago. First it was the washer, which we had fixed. And then a week later a pulley went out on the dryer. Son of a …

As I did with the washer, I diagnosed the problem – the Internet is great – and decided again that it made far more sense to get the machine repaired rather than begin looking for a new one. So I called the same repairman who fixed our washer, because his service charge is reasonable and he treated us well. When he arrived at our door Wednesday afternoon, he looked at me and said, “I swear I didn’t touch the dryer the last time I was here.”

He disassembled almost the entire machine, and I gotta say it was pretty interesting to see the guts of a drying machine Seriously, it never occurred to me that the drum – the tumbler, as I call it – is just an aluminum barrel. The repairman found the bad pulley and ultimately figured out he had to order a new part.

Hopefully, our dryer will be back in service early next week, and my weekly visits to the Laundromat can cease.

* * *

Thursday was Valentine’s Day.

And it was a much more joyful and less stressful affair than a year ago.

Much of the joy stemmed from Phoebe, who had been talking about and counting down to the day for weeks. And Thursday morning, she woke up and bounded into our bedroom shouting, “Happy Valentine’s Day!”

The memory of the day, though, came when we headed out for dinner.

After discussing our options, Kates and I settled on the Chinese super buffet uptown, the same one we took the family to after Faye’s baptism. We hadn’t had an opportunity to return there since that day, but, oh, my mouth was watering just thinking about going back.

So we loaded up the car, and headed there. Valentine’s Day joy was overflowing.

But when we arrived, the parking lot was overflowing, too. Thinking it didn’t look good, I headed inside to check on the wait time, while the girls stayed in the car.

Inside the restaurant, I could barely get in the door. There were no hosts at the front, and I could see immediately that getting a table was going to be fruitless. One woman who was waiting with her family seemed to read my mind and told me they had a reservation but the restaurant wasn’t even honoring those.

I promptly went back to our car and broke the news that we would not be eating there.

Phoebe was crushed and burst into a sob.

After listing nearly all of the other dining options in town, we finally got Phoebe to settle down by agreeing to go to Subway – her favorite.

So there we went, to share our special Valentine’s Day family dinner. Everybody was happy, and Faye enjoyed flirting with the college boys who also were dining there.

And as promised, we returned to the Chinese buffet Friday night to getting a table again. We were successful, and we ate heartily.

* * *

Finally …

We have a crawler.

For weeks, Faye had been close. We’ve watched closely as she’s scooted across the floor. And then started reaching for things, which landed her on her belly – but she couldn’t figure out how to coordinate her hands with her legs and could only move backward.

At other times, she reached as if she might be ready to start moving forward, but she always got one leg stuck in front of her belly and couldn’t figure out how to move it behind her and propel herself forward.

Then, this afternoon, all of us were in the playroom when Kates caught Faye – fully on her hands and knees – crawling across the floor like she knew what she was doing all along.

All of us stopped what we were doing and watched Faye in wonder for a few moments. … Then we realized she was heading directly for Phoebe’s play food and the other trinkets she had strewn across the floor. It propelled Phoebe into a race to pick up as many of her things as she could before Faye got to them.

We’ve entered yet another phase of “Things will never be the same” at our house. And now Phoebe gets to see another dimension of having a little sister.